British nun on track for sainthood

[triumphguy]

British nun who hid Jews from Nazis on track for sainthood

telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9016365/British-nun-who-hid-Jews-from-Nazis-on-track-for-sainthood.html

The Telegraph US - Breaking news, opinion & analysis

A file on Mother Riccarda Beauchamp Hambrough has been sent to the Vatican to be studied by historians and theologians.

Her cause for sainthood was opened in July 2010 by the Diocese of Rome along with that of Sister Katherine Flanagan, marking the first phase of the investigations.

In a significant development, the causes of both women have together been sent to the Holy See’s Congregation of Causes for Sainthood, marking a significant, but early, step forward in the long road to becoming saints.

If it is concluded that the pair lived lives of “heroic virtue”, the Pope will declare the London-born nuns to be “Venerable” and the search will begin for two miracles to first declare them Blessed and then saints.

Both nuns belonged to a revived order of Bridgettine sisters nicknamed “the hot cross bun nuns” because of the distinctive crosses covering the tops of their wimples.

Mother Riccarda helped to save the lives of about 60 Jews by hiding them from the Nazis in her Rome convent, the Casa di Santa Brigida.

She born in 1887 and was baptised in St Mary Magdalene’s Church, Brighton, at the age of four years after her parents converted to the Catholic faith.

Yesterday Father Ray Blake, the parish priest of St Mary’s welcomed the progress of her cause. “I think it is fantastic,” he said.

“Here in Brighton we are following her cause with great enthusiasm and see her very much as our local saint.

“When I tell people at Mass that that her cause is going forward I’m sure that they will be overjoyed.”

While Mother Riccarda spent most of her life in Rome, eventually becoming the head of the order, Sister Katherine was at the forefront of efforts to open Bridgettine convents around the world some 400 years after the Reformation nearly wiped out the order.
Judith Whitehead, a niece of Sister Katherine, said she was astonished that the first phase had concluded so quickly.

“I am surprised that it has moved to the next stage in my lifetime,” said Mrs Whitehead, 73, of Shaftesbury, Dorset, who had given evidence to the initial inquiry.

“I thought that the progression of looking into her life would take about 10 years,” she said.
“It is amazing to have someone in your family who was so revered by everybody … the Bridgettines obviously think that she is going to become a saint.”

Father Simon Henry, the parish priest of St Gregory’s Church, Earlsfield, south London, where Sister Katherine was baptised, said: “To have a possible saint from the parish is wonderful.”

Born Florence Catherine in Clerkenwell in 1892, Sister Katherine trained as a dressmaker before she left the family home for Rome at 19 years with the aim of becoming a nun.
She went on to become the first prioress of new convents in Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire; Lugano, Switzerland; and Vadstena, Sweden - where she died in 1941.

A year after Sister Katherine joined, the future Mother Riccarda - born Madaleina Catherine - also journeyed to Rome.

Because of her talent and intelligence she soon became deputy of the Order, called the Most Holy Saviour of St Bridget, and remained at the mother house in the Italian capital.
When the Nazis took control in Rome in 1943, and began to round up the Jews of Rome for deportation to Auschwitz, Mother Riccarda risked her own life by smuggling fugitives into her convent.

Some Jews who gave evidence to the initial inquiry spoke of Mother Riccarda’s kindness, saying they nicknamed her “Mama”.

She died in Rome in 1966 at the age of 79 years.

 

[TempleofTheSoul]

Some wonderful news for a change. I have already prayed to Mother Riccarda for my intentions in the hopes for a miracle and that it will help her cause along.

God bless

 

[The_Scott]

You know what’s great? Prior to today, I never even heard of this wonderful woman!

Making people saints brings an otherwise relatively unknown person to the minds of the world!

 

[triumphguy]

Here’s a better article:independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/british-nuns-who-saved-wartime-jews-on-path-to-sainthood-1988875.html?action=Gallery

Tucked away on a side street on the east bank of the Tiber, the Casa di Santa Brigidia guesthouse has specialised in welcoming weary travellers for much of the past century.

Run by the Bridgettine nuns, it is a place of tranquillity in the heart of Rome. During the Second World War the guesthouse’s reputation as a sanctuary was cemented when the nuns risked their lives to harbour more than 60 Jewish refugees following the arrival of German troops in 1943.

Now, more than 65 years after the nuns opened their doors to those refugees, the Vatican has signalled its plans to put three of the order’s most prominent figures, two of whom were British, on the road to sainthood. On 5 July the Vatican will declare Mother Riccarda Beauchamp Hambrough and Sister Katherine Flanagan as “servants of God”, the first official step towards sainthood.

If their saintliness is proven – a process that can take decades and requires at least two miracles to be attributed to each of them – they will become the first female British Catholics to be canonised in four decades.

Along with Blessed Mary Elizabeth Hasselblad, a Swedish-born Lutheran who converted to Catholicism, the three sisters set about reviving the Bridgettines, a Swedish order of nuns that was once highly influential in medieval Europe but was decimated during the Reformation. Sister Katherine was away from Rome during the war and could not help with Jewish refugees, but the Vatican believes all three women have enough of a cause to be considered for canonisation.

Much of the evidence collected so far has concentrated on how Mother Riccarda and Blessed Mary Elizabeth hid scores of Jewish families in their own quarters as Nazi troops, with their Italian fascist allies, scoured Rome for Jews. Joanna Bogle, a British author who is writing a book about the two nuns, said they took an enormous risk in hiding Jews.

“Although orders of nuns were given a certain level of diplomatic immunity, the punishment for hiding Jews would still have been death,” she said. “There was a police station just opposite the guesthouse and the Jews could have been discovered at any minute. Although no one was caught, everyone suffered together because food had to be shared out amongst all those hiding there.”

Much of what is known about the nuns’ actions comes from a single testimony by Piero Piperno, who was a teenager when he sought refuge with the Bridgettines. The 80-year-old is now one of the only people who was old enough at the time of the war to recall what happened. He has testified to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, although much of his evidence remains sealed.

Last year he explained how Mother Riccarda, who had arrived in Rome from Britain in her early twenties, was dubbed “mammina” (little mother) by the refugees. “[Mother Riccarda] was all sweetness and sympathy,” he recalled. “She was always around, and everybody went to her when they had any kind of problem. She was very comforting.”

The only known photograph of Mother Riccarda shows her wearing glasses and the Bridgettines’ trademark striped habit which has caused the order to be dubbed “The Hot Cross Bun Nuns”.

Little is know about her time in the UK other than that she was born into a Protestant family on the Isle of Wight, baptised into Catholicism at the age of four in Brighton and later went to school in Cumbria.

Compared to John Henry Newman, who will be beatified by Pope Benedict during his visit to Britain later this summer, the Bridgettine nuns have had few champions for their cause outside of their order. “There has been very little lobbying to make the nuns saints,” said Mrs Bogle. “I think that is a bit of a shame. They were a remarkable bunch of women who did extraordinary things.”

How the church names a saint

• The process can take decades or even centuries. In the 11th century, Pope John XV began laying the foundations for a series of official rites that all potential saints had to pass.

• Technically, a person can only be considered a saint five years after their death, although Pope Benedict XVI waived that particular rule for his predecessor John Paul II, who also waived it for Mother Teresa.

• The first step is to be declared a “servant of God”. Officials draw up highly detailed studies of everything a candidate said and wrote, as well as a biography. The documents are then passed to the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints.

• Successful candidates are declared “Venerable” as investigators look for evidence of miracles, usually unexplained medical cures caused by praying. Candidates are then beatified, which amounts to a public declaration that the person is in heaven. Only when the miracles are officially “approved” is the candidate made a full saint.

The convent
http://www.independent.co.uk/migrat...ERNATES/w380/pg-26-casa-di-santa-brigida.jpeg

 

[Fay_Roberts]

Always some good news, this woman who until now I had heard nothing of, the Catholic world should be celebrating, there are a lot of good saintly women in the past, & more in the future I hope, let us silently pray within our hearts for the sainthood of this brave Lady; Fay